Hidden
by Seiryuu Girl
Summary: If there was a psycological section here, that's where I'd put this. It's observations about Nakago, from a maid who works in the Emperor's palace.


Hidden  
  
Disclaimer: Fushigi Yuugi, which I have borrowed for use in this piece, belongs to Watase Yuu and her affiliates. Summary: A short semi-vignette about Nakago, and the emotionless mask he shows the world. Has a few of my ideas on his character. It is from the point of view of a slave who is fascinated by her master and the tragic circumstances that caused him to become who he is. Don't read this if you don't know about Nakago's past.  
  
  
  
Isn't it sad the way people find it necessary to live behind a mask? What happened to cause human beings to be so cruel that they should not allow others to feel the things they feel themselves? Perhaps it is the idea that they feel uncomfortable with strong emotions themselves. In any case, people go through life hiding their true feelings about some things just in case one person does not agree or thinks it a sign of weakness. That is a fact that cannot be altered.  
  
Of course, this is more pronounced in some than others. One such person is my own master. The shogun of Kutou, Nakago.  
  
His name alone sends a shiver of fear down the backs of most here, even his own soldiers. He has been known to kill with shocking brutality and never feel an ounce of remorse. There are rumours in this palace he killed his own mother. People say he is evil, and totally enjoys every moment of torture he gives his victims.  
  
I know better. I have served Nakago since he was a young child of eleven. The pain I have seen him go through would send anyone else reeling into insanity.  
  
Nakago is a man who, after years of abuse in every possible form, has simply given up on emotions. I do not know exactly what happened to him, or who did it. What I do know is that he used to come back to his room every night soaked in his own shed blood.  
  
And yet he never cried. Nakago was by all means a child, someone who should have been at home with his family, playing with his friends and going through all the experiences that allow people to grow up. Children cry all the time. But this one did not, simply because he'd never been allowed to, or taught that it was alright.  
  
As a child, he was cold and distant, but still held hope for himself. I can remember him sitting in his room for hours, staring out the window as though he expected something or someone to fly through and save him from the darkness that was taking over his soul.  
  
I remember in detail the day he stopped that. It was a cold morning, with stormy clouds rising over the sky. The day itself seemed bleak, and it was as though Seiryuu himself had decided to leech all the happiness from the world. Even the usual loud birds that perched in the tree outside the window were not singing. Probably because they had all died, frozen solid to their perches in the night. Nakago turned away from the window, and I watched with interest from the slightly opened door. "I see no reason for hope any longer," he had whispered to himself, his face wearing an odd emotionless expression. He was only thirteen, and that expression was etched on his face for life.  
  
He stopped coming back to his room soaked in blood after he joined the military. He wanted to become a shogun. Most advised him that it would be impossible, a member of the Hin race, which had been wiped out systematically by the very army he sought to join. But he was truly Nakago now.  
  
Gone was the little boy who looked out the window. Gone was the child who hoped for a better life. Instead a twisted man took his place, a man whose face showed no emotion and whose words betrayed nothing.  
  
A man whose humanity had been ripped away from him. A man whose own most precious soul had been stolen. A man whose only visible desire was power.  
  
A man who had simply given up on all emotions, because they had hurt him far too badly. It's like what Yui-sama said to me a few days ago, about a cat that refused to enter the kitchens after a cook kicked it. "Once bitten, twice shy."  
  
Nakago had been bitten many, many times.  
  
His race being massacred, and the constant abuse forced him to adopt a mask of emotionlessness, and become the cruel, harsh man the world sees today.  
  
Nakago lives behind his mask to hide his inner torment. He shows no emotion because emotion is seen as weakness by others. He has built so many walls around himself that even he could not scale them if he wanted to.  
  
The only thing Nakago lives for now is power, and he has a huge advantage over others in obtaining it, for his ruthlessness is one not by necessity but the natural way be behaves. People are pieces in the game the shogun plays, and, like pieces, one or two matter very little to the greater goal. Nakago has forgotten he was once, and probably still is, a piece too.  
  
Nakago, once a boy named Ayuru, is now the man who some dub the "kori no shogun". A general of ice. And he will never be able find the fire to melt that ice, for it was taken away with his soul.  
  
  
  
Seiryuu Girl: Don't blame me if that depressed you. I was in a sad mood when I wrote it. Please review and tell me what you think. It's what keeps me writing. 


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